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Cloud Strife vs Samus Aran vs Link vs Sephiroth 2007
Results Round Five Friday, November 2nd, 2007 Ulti's Analysis Link > Cloud was an absolute lock here, and it probably always will be in every match they have together from now on barring insane SFF hijinx, like a fourway poll with Link, Mario, Samus and Cloud in it. And even then, watch Link still win anyway. Cloud had the standard early troubles, with Samus this time, but thanks to the assist from Link he was able to dispatch her with ease. I know I'm supposed to say something about how impressive it was Samus outdid Sephiroth here, but I can't find myself caring much about a battle for third place. To me, this means about as much as the Tails/Boss duel did all the way back in round 1. And given how late-round bandwagons can operate, you always see weird overperformances and underperformances late in every contest. Granted this match in part telegraphed Samus going even with Cloud forever in 2010 along with Sephiroth's perpetual decline, but that stuff didn't really need to be confirmed anyway. We could all see it coming. Although with that said, Samus standing up to Link better than Sephiroth stood up to Cloud was impressive given the SFF history between Square and Nintendo. Doesn't make this match at all interesting, though, since Link > Cloud here was a lock from day 1. And without L-Block getting in the way, it would have been a lock in the final as well. More fun with numbers: Final Fantasy 7 - 63418 Link - 55996 Stats and Analysis * Sephiroth underperformed by '-4.90%', the #19 most disappointing performance of 2007 here we had, arguably, our four strongest characters in contest history. unfortunately, none of them are particularly close in strength, so the match itself wasn't expected to be all that interesting. Link was going to SFF Samus into oblivion like he always does, Cloud and Sephiroth were going to do a 55/45 split like usual, and Link was going to look fairly unbeatable despite a 53-47 or so split between Nintendo and FF7. but then, the craziest thing happened -- like Mario, Samus just did not die. Samus came out crushing Sephiroth (which wasn't all that unusual), but she didn't stop. Samus increased or stalled consistently until the last few hours of the poll, where Sephiroth cut 500 votes off the lead and ended up with a 1500 vote loss to Samus. the amazing thing about this match was that, just a year ago, the board went crazy over the same thing -- Snake vs. Sephiroth -- and just about nobody cared about this one. granted, neither one was going to advance, but still: transience.paragonsigma.com/screens/DpObliVion-snakewins.JPG just sayin'. Samus's impressive showing here was also notable because it didn't really affect Link at all. he went 3% above expectations, and Sephiroth went way below what you'd expect. those votes went to Link, not Cloud. Nintendo was beating FF7 55.8/44.2 -- Cloud was going to need a hell of a performance to top Link in the final. Match Trends External Links * Match Updates * Guru Match Predictions * Oracle Match Results • Previous Match • Next Match Category:2007 Contest Matches